I was born in Poonch (Kashmir) and now I live in Norway. I oppose war and violence and am a firm believer in the peaceful co-existence of all nations and peoples. In my academic work I have tried to espouse the cause of the weak and the oppressed in a world dominated by power politics, misleading propaganda and violations of basic human rights. I also believe that all conscious members of society have a moral duty to stand for and further the cause of peace and human rights throughout the world.

Monday, April 24, 2017

Unity of Pakistani State and Islamism

Religious minorities under constant threat in Pakistan

Nasir Khan, April 24, 2017

The Pakistani state, its educational and judicial
institutions that are deeply influenced by a flimsy religiosity and
phoney piety present some ghoulish contradictions for any modern
democratic state. How can we combine theocracy with democracy and call
it the Islamic Republic of Pakistan? This spectacle continues to defy
any clear understanding of the underlying assumptions for a modern
democratic state.

The way the new ruling elites of Pakistan brought in
Islam arbitrarily as a sectarian force in a multi-religious country has
bedevilled the social fabric of Pakistan. It all happened after the
death of its strong secularist leader Mr. Jinnah in 1948 in the
newly-established state of Pakistan that had come into existence as a
result of the partition of India in 1947. When he was no longer there to
guide the policies or the future direction the country was to take,
some rigid orthodox Muslim leaders and manipulators of Islam came to the
fore for political power and became major political actors. Had Mr.
Jinnah lived a few years more, then he would have laid the foundations
of a modern democratic state, where every religious community was free
to practise its faith without the intervention of state or any coercive
policies to advance the interests of any one section of Muslims.

After Mr. Jinnah’s death, the gradual process of
exploitation of Islam became a standard practice. Political and
religious leaders played with the sensitivities of a gullible and
largely illiterate population in the name of Islam. The big drive to
misuse Islam was helped by indoctrination in religious schools, called
madrassas, and mosques as well as in ordinary schools and institutions
of education where the teaching of Islamic dogmas has been part of
official policy. The syllabuses for the younger generation starting from
the elementary schools to the universities are made with a view to
bringing in religion in every possible way. We see that happening even
in books on physics, biology and botany, etc. that start with some
quotation from the Qur’an or a saying of the Prophet.

As a result, such formal instilling of dogmas became
quite common and the country became a centre of religious intolerance,
sectarianism and vicious victimisation of religious minorities and
sects. For the militant Islamists and fanatic fundamentalists the field
was open to resort to violence, coercion and intimidation on socially
and politically marginalsed religious minorities.

The lynching of Mashal Khan, a 23-year-old journalism
student in Pakistan on 13 April 2017 shows the problem ordinary people
of Pakistan face at the hands of Islamists, who are willing do anything
to stop any voice they consider goes against their ideologies and
sectarian theologies. In Pakistan, Muslim extremists have killed
innocent people, both Muslims and non-Muslims, over the years. The
murders of innocent people on concocted charges of blasphemy and
sectarian violence continue to cause much insecurity and fear among all
sections of the population.

The misguided killers of innocent people also think that
what they do is to safeguard the sanctity of God and the honour of the
Prophet. However, it is a total prevarication because in Pakistan where
there are 97% people Muslims, God and the Prophet have never been under
any threat. They are safe, secure and beyond any threat to their power
or status. Any false accusations against innocent people and then
killing them or targeting them cannot be justified merely because some
ignorant and muddle-headed people thought what they were doing was some
good work on behalf of God or the Prophet. In fact, such people are not
operating in a vacuum.

The blasphemy laws of Pakistan are a fertile
ground for such killers and other violent criminals to use as tools to
advance their reign of terror. Consequently, both the State and
Islamists are upholders of the blasphemy stick for destructive purposes.
Religious minorities have to bear the brunt of the violence and terror
because of such unjust and primitive laws that are fully exploited by
the Islamists and other sections of the Muslim population whimsically,
very often to settle some private conflicts or petty quarrels.

There are numerous cases when ordinary people from the
Muslim community have falsely accused the members of a religious
minority for blasphemy. A few years ago, two Christian labourers, a
married couple, were thrown in a burning brick kiln after they were
falsely accused to have insulted the Holy Qur’an. A local mullah and his
congregation appeared on the scene and helped the kiln workers to break
the bones of the man before throwing him and his wife in the kiln,
where they died in the most frightening way. Similarly, there is he case
of Asia Bibi, a married Christian woman who was falsely accused of
blasphemy and sentenced to death. She is still languishing in jail. When
the governor of Punjab Salman Taseer spoke against the unjust
imprisonment of Asia Bibi and opposed the blasphemy laws, he was gunned
down in 2011 by his bodyguard, an fanatic Islamist. Another person, who
spoke on behalf of Asia Bibi was Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian, who was
minorities minister in the central government. He was killed in 2010.

Religious minorities in Pakistan are at the mercy of the
majority and extremely vulnerable because of the Muslim extremists. In
an atmosphere of rampant religious discrimination and bigotry, it is
quite common for ordinary Muslims to view non-Muslims as infidels
(kafirs). The mullahs, preachers and Islamists have instilled such
beliefs in the people. The next step in this innate assertion of the
superiority of Islam as the only true religion is to bring non-Muslims
to Islam. As a result every ignorant Muslim feels qualified to assert
the uniqueness of Islam and its fundamentals. What sort of Islam the
people indoctrinated in religious schools (madrassas) and other
educational insitution can preach is not difficult to imagine for an
impartial, educated person.

In Pakistan it is so easy for anyone to accuse another
person of having insulted God, the Prophet or Islam and thus entangle
any innocent person in the blasphemy laws where the punishments is
death. These situations of framing the innocent people in cases that
lead to the most cruel penalties brings to mind the tortures inflicted
on the witches in the Middle Ages in Europe. For the outside world, the
so-called blasphemy laws of Pakistan may appear ridiculous, absurd and
insane for the present age, but those who are at the receiving end of
such barbaric laws are not some imaginary creatures but ordinary human
beings who become victims of institutionalised injustice in the name of
Islam. No wonder, Pakistan has jailed more people on spurious
allegations for blasphemy than any other country in this century.

We should pay attention to the fact that most
brainwashed and indoctrinated people genuinely believe that the true
voice of Islam comes from the mullahs and that the blasphemy laws of
Pakistan are to protect Islam. During the countrywide demonstrations
that followed the assassination of governor Salman Taseer, most people
supported the blasphemy laws. Among these people were thousands of
lawyers and university teachers!

In reality, Pakistani rulers had used the Islam card for
their political objectives and in doing so had given a free-hand to the
clerics to unleash their toxic sectarian and anti-democratic propaganda
against all democratic forces and rational ideas. What this leads to is
before our eyes. Any Muslim can take the law into his hands and accuse
anyone of insulting God or the Prophet and feel free to kill any such
falsely accused person. This is what happened in the recent case of
Mashal Khan at the hands of a large crowd of Pakistani university
students and others. Such misguided Pakistanis feel they are doing
something worthy and noble when they kill anyone in the name of Islam.
Thus Islam was transformed into a caricature by the mullahs, fanatic
Islamic parties and organizations, and by the Pakistani rulers. Now,
ordinary people are falling victims to the barbarity in the name of a
religion.

Pakistani law is not able to defend the legal and civil
rights of its citizens because it vitiates the basic norms of the
freedom of conscience where people are allowed to follow and practise
any religion or cult as long as any such religion or sect does not
violate the laws of the land or violate the rights of other citizens.
Moreover, there is no restraint upon anyone in a democratic country to
convert to some other religion voluntarily or reject all religions and
follow some alternative world outlooks such as atheism, agnosticism,
scepticism or humanism, etc. These things happen in all democratic and
civilised countries where the respect for people’s freedom of conscience
is a norm.

Modern states do not force people to follow any religion
or reject any religion. That’s a matter left to the individual’s
choice, in which the state or public authorities do not interfere. Such
ideas may seem strange to the vast majority of Pakistani Muslims,
because they have experienced only discriminatory laws against some
sects like the Ahmadis, who were classified as non-Muslim community in
1974. Since then, the Ahmadis have been subject to all sorts of
atrocities and oppression. From the state authorities to the common man
in the street, and from the from the Muslim theologians to the village
mullahs, the Ahmadis are kafirs (non-believers) and they can be reviled,
abused and molested with impunity by any Muslim! It was in such a
milieu of intolerance, hostility and vile oppression that some
right-wing Islamist students spread the false rumours about Mashal Khan
to be an Ahmadi and then gathered a large crowd to lynch him in the most
barbaric way.

If a solution is to be found to the uncontrolled disease
that is afflicting Pakistan, then the solution lies in diagnosing the
cause of the disease. It is no secret that the people of Pakistan have
widespread institutions throughout the country where young people are
drilled into religious fanaticism that has a big social impact on all
sections of the population. Even the so-called ‘educated’ people who
have gone or go to universities or professional institutions are not
immune to the pervasive indoctrination and religious fanaticism. What
the students of Mardan University did with a fellow student Mashal Khan
is the latest instance of the bitter fruit that an unrestrained
exploitation of Islam is producing.